EXCLUSIVE – Matthew Steeples shares that “now is the time to drink” as Claude Bosi and Bibendum return to Brompton Cross in Chelsea in July after having been closed for a year
On Sunday 31st August last year, the acclaimed French chef Claude Bosi “permanently” closed his Bibendum and associated Oyster Bar restaurants on Brompton Cross citing that “despite our very best efforts, we were unable to reach a resolution with our partners and landlords that would allow Michelin House to move into its next chapter.” Bosi had run the restaurant since 2017 and had been preceded by Simon Hopkinson from 1987 until 1994.
Going further, in an interview for JancisRobinson.com a month later, Bosi cryptically commented: “The situation is complicated because the lease is held by members of the Conran and Hamlyn families and I do not want to jeopardise anything or antagonise anybody.”
Named after Michelin’s portly mascot ‘Monsieur Bibendum’ who, in turn, took his name from the latin phrase Nunc est Bibendum – “Now is the Time to Drink” – The Steeple Times can now exclusively reveal that the Bibendum restaurant will reopen with Claude Bosi at the helm in July.
Two Michelin starred Claude Bosi and his representatives were approached for comment, but had not replied by the time of publication. Meanwhile, the adjoining 31,750 square foot former Conran store remains shuttered and to let through agents Colliers. Whilst the rental figure for the space is not publicly available, the rateable value for the space alone is the astoundingly off-putting sum of £1 million per annum.
Now is indeed the time to drink. We join all raising a glass and say cheers to this truly great, rare piece of restaurant news.
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Of the restaurant premises, in September 2025, Claude Bosi told Nick Lander of JancisRobinson.com: “Although this is a building that looks wonderful from the outside and from the interior if you are a customer, what the restaurant trade refers to as ‘back of house’ was inadequate and getting worse. The kitchen staff needed a lot more space; the restaurant staff were having to store tables in the flower shop, and because it had originally been built as Michelin House, it included a tyre-fitting bay and a place where motorists could plan their journeys. The services [for a restaurant] were inadequate. The one downpipe for the lavatories and kitchen would overflow from time to time and the electricity supply was never sufficient. We tried to negotiate but sadly that failed and when it did I had no option but to close. It’s a beautiful building and one that needs to be looked after.” These problems will hopefully have been resolved prior to July 2026’s grand reopening.Designed by François Espinasse – who was also responsible for Michelin’s Paris headquarters – and built “as an ode to the glory of the tyre,” Grade II listed Michelin House, 61 Fulham Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 6RH stands at the northern end of Sloane Avenue and the start of the Fulham Road. It has a façade clad with green and white tiles and features stained glass windows based on the tyre manufacturer’s adverts of the time. The premises opened for business on 20th January 1911 and remained owned by Michelin until 1987 when it was acquired by Sir Terence Conran and Lord Hamlyn for £8 million. The pair redeveloped the site to provide retail, restaurant and office spaces and increased its size from 90,000 square foot to 118,000 square foot with the addition of a new steel and glass structure on the Sloane Avenue elevation.A tyre-fitting workshop within Michelin House, photographed circa 1912.The original Michelin Man mascot, introduced in 1898, was a slightly intimidating, mummy-like figure rather than the friendly marshmallow character known today. The design – also known as the ‘Michelin Tire Man’ or ‘Michelin Tyre Man’ and ‘Bib’ and ‘Bibelobis’ – reflected multiple stacked rings designed to resemble stacked rubber tyres. The ‘Michelin Guide’ itself was first issued in 1900 and awards up to three Michelin stars to a select few restaurants in certain geographic areas annually.‘The Steeple Times’ featured a party that was held at Bibendum on 7th June 2019 for a London to Monte Carlo car female only car rally that ironically sought to raise funds for victims of sex trafficking. The Cash & Rocket event in Michelin House was attended by heiresses including Paris Hilton and Chloe Green, but became infamous for being the last public sighting in the United Kingdom of the since convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell. The pension pot plundering ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ deviant daughter subsequently vanished before being located at the equally ironically named ‘Tucked Away’ on 2nd July 2020; she was then unceremoniously hurled into the clink and rightly remains there rotting.
Matthew Steeples takes a look at a £36 million Kensington mansion formerly owned by disgraced business tycoons Alan Bond and Lord Black; its former chatelaine was known for stating “I have an extravagance that know no bounds”
Sir Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames once described the buccaneering businessman and media tycoon Lord Black of Crossharbour as “London’s biggest bore unhung” whilst his wife, Lady Black – better known as the author and journalist Barbara Amiel – was suggested to be just a “rich bitch” by Sarah Sands in a “case for the defence” article in the Independent in October 2006.
“Poster boy for the 80s” turned fraudster and jailbird Alan Bond (1938 – 2015) was an English-Australian businessman equally Marmite-like in being liked or loathed and now a Kensington mansion owned for a time by both subsequently disgraced businessmen is once again for sale.
14 Cottesmore Gardens, formerly known as 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens, was purchased by Alan Bond’s Satellite Group for £7 million in the 1980s and sold by administrators of that business to Conrad Black and his wife for the knockdown sum of just £3.5 million in 1992.
Plain old Mr and Mrs Black (as they then were) lavished further millions – some of which came from the company Hollinger International, Inc., which ultimately resulted in their downfall – on the double fronted 19th century mansion and used it for entertaining on a lavish scale. Guests, including the likes of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Joan Collins, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, were said to flock to the parties they gave there, but in 2005 these gatherings of upto 400 people at a time came to an almighty end.
Forced to sell at a bargain basement price of just £13.1 million on an ask of £17.5 million as the Canadian born billionaire faced jail time in America, Lord and Lady Black’s tenure was over and the residence saw its “arriviste torch” passed to Juan and Adriana Villalonga, a couple described as “a Mexican telecom czar and his beauty-queen wife.” Of what came next, The Globe And Mail’s Paul Waldie pointedly penned in February 2007: “[They] quickly erased many of the features that the Blacks prized.”
Once again for sale as of April 2023, the value of 14 Cottesmore Gardens has again been deemed to have substantially risen. Knight Frank offer the 12,310 square foot, five-storey residence at a punchy price of £36 million and laud it as “imposing” and “presented in good order throughout.” They add that a “pre-planning consultation” has found that further accommodation could be added that would take the internal space to more than 15,000 square feet; business barons with deep pockets only need apply.
Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
Pictured Top – 54-foot wide 14 Cottesmore Gardens is described by selling agents Knight Frank as “offering lateral living so often requested but so hard to find in central London.” They neglect to mention that with its hedges cut back to the minimum, the place actually looks extremely forlorn.
Flamboyant Lord and Lady Black dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a party at Kensington Palace in 2000. For a time, the couple employed 17 butlers (if Tom Bower is to be believed) and had two private jets and homes – aside from the 19th Cottesmore Gardens mansion – in New York, Palm Beach and Toronto. “Guests packed into their parties at Cottesmore Gardens,” Bower remarked in his 2006 book the couple, adding: “Amiel was a big spender… Under the control of senior butler Andrew Lightwood, second butler Peter Wilson and a succession of third butlers, Amiel’s life in Kensington had become what her constantly changing staff called ‘bizarre.’ Each recruit was taken by Lightwood on an introductory tour of the house, ending on the roof. ‘Make sure the landing lights are on at all times,’ instructed Lightwood solemnly, ‘because Madame takes off from here on her broomstick looking for cats. She needs the lights to guide her return.’ His face would crack into a smile. ‘Most important, take care that she never sees you. She hates seeing any of us.’ Amiel’s eccentricity demanded that her staff hid whenever she approached, diving into cupboards if necessary, and never entered her quarters when she was present. Every day, all the bed linen was changed and subjected to ‘the penny test.’ A coin was dropped onto the sheets. If it failed to bounce they were not drawn sufficiently tight. Every cushion was arranged to a precise pre-ordained position, and each towel placed exactly as Amiel had predetermined. ‘Andrew!’ she screamed down the telephone on one memorable occasion, ‘the towels are in the wrong place!’ Lightwood, as Amiel knew, was in New York, but he was expected to telephone the staff in the house in London to rectify the error. ‘You f**king pillock!’ she yelled at another member of staff for reading her ‘Daily Mail’ before it was delivered to her.”Barbara Amiel Black (or ‘Lady Black’ as she prefers to be known) in her drawing room at Cottesmore Gardens (pictured). Of her, Sarah Sands on Lord and Lady Black in the ‘Independent’ in October 2006 opined: “Conrad and Barbara in their monstrous, glamorous way, knew how to throw parties. The talk was of geo-politics and hemlines. Nowadays, we scorn their extravagance and doubt the source of their wealth with prune-faced hindsight. Meanwhile, everyone is sucking up to Russians…. Barbara would disingenuously begin her midnight calls to me by saying in her low, breathy voice: ‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’ She would then offer little glimpses of her own home life. I remember her mentioning that Conrad Black was upstairs playing with his fleet of toy gun ships in the bath… I remember her examining an exhibition of doll’s houses at the Chelsea Flower Show and sighing how restful it would be to live in this cosy little home. How she envied people in small houses. The burden of wealth was one of her more dangerous fantasies. At one of her Gatsby-style parties in Kensington, she flinched at the elaborate canapés on offer: ‘Really, all I want is a sausage,’ she said, piteously. Then, she ran a hand down her inconceivably expensive dress and whispered: ‘I hate these parties, I am so shy.’ Later, I was invited to her boudoir, where she lay on cushion surrounded by her women friends. She was Kensington’s Cleopatra, surrounded by maidens such as the designer and Forte daughter Olga Polizzi, the political thinker Tessa Keswick and the writer Miriam Gross.”The very same drawing room at 14 Cottesmore Gardens today. The décor is now somewhat more modern and less ‘classical country house-ified.’ It’s certainly more Soho Farmhouse than Alberto Pinto in style; it is currently a space that the former Meghan Markle would feel more at home than say, perhaps, the likes of Lord and Lady Black’s chum Ghislaine Maxwell and her fellow noxious nonce Ponzi scheming paedophile boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Pinto was responsible, it should be noted, for the designs of most of Epstein’s residences.The front elevation of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens during the era it was owned by Lord and Lady Black.Multiple entries for Lord and Lady Black during the time they owned 14 Cottesmore Gardens appeared in the ‘Little Black Book’ address book often attributed as being that of the friends and associates of Jeffrey Epstein, but that featured more of the contacts of Ghislaine Maxwell in fact. In October 2020, Barbara Amiel took revenge on the pension pot plunderer’s padeophile sex trafficker daughter by featuring her in her “score-settling” memoir ‘Friends & Enemies: A Life in Vogue, Prison, & Park Avenue.” Maxwell had “dumped” Lady Black when Lord Black was being investigated for fraud. She wrote of their last meeting: “We were friends – so putting on my ‘So good to see you’ face, I headed for her. She bolted. Turned that sharp tight little turn when you really want to get away. And that was it.” Of the clear lover of plastic surgery Lady Black, in October 2020, Sarah Sands remarked in ‘The Mail on Sunday’: “She had a bohemian, almost masculine, view of opportunistic sex. She describes, for instance, accompanying an early love in his white Triumph sports car ‘in which once or twice I had performed fellatio to the fascination of passing truck drivers, all for fun.’”After getting out of the clink in 2012, Lord and Lady Black decided to go back on the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and posed for photographers before heading back to London to party with friends. In May 2019, the rambunctious peer arrogantly announced he’d be returning to the House of Lords after President Donald Trump pardoned and praised him. Commenting, of this pardon, Lord Black declared: “I’m not bitter… Officially in the United States, I’ve never been charged and I won in the end. It was a war and there are casualties in wars. I lost the time, I lost a lot of money, but as you can see my standards of living isn’t bad… The truth is, these, last 15 years, I haven’t been as interested in British politics as I was before – in the Thatcher years. It could be quite interesting again, in fact it is as of right now – it’s very interesting… It’s my good fortune that at a time when it is feasible, it happens – by happy coincidence – that it is a time of great fermentation in British public affairs.” Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem to have turned up on occasions since.The previous owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens, Alan Bond (1938 – 2015), will forever be remembered as “Australia’s most notorious corporate criminal.” Born in Hammersmith, London, Bond’s first crime occurred when he was charged with theft aged 14 in Fremantle in Australia and whilst he is remembered for bankrolling the successful challenge for the 1983 America’s Cup, it is for causing the then biggest corporate collapse in Australian history that he will be go down in history. Former Miss Mexico Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros (at the time Adriana Villalonga) bought the house in 2005. She divorced the Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga in 2009 and married the French businessman Emmanuel Schreder in Ibiza in June 2013. In August 2014, the magazine ‘Quién’ featured the model and television presenter on its cover and at that time she described her new husband as “the love of my life.”Madrid born Juan Villalonga became the joint owner of 14 Cottesmore Gardens with his then wife Adriana Abascal – the couple were married between 2000 and 2009 – in 2005. He is listed on Companies House as being a director of the now dissolved Medikidz Foundation at the address between August 2009 and November 2013. Married since 2011 to a photographer named Vanessa Von Zitewitz, Mr Villalonga was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000. He was named as one of the best performing chief executive officers in the world by ‘Harvard Business Review’ in 2010 and is also linked to addresses in Monaco.
The Names & Numbers – 14 Cottesmore Gardens (formerly known as ’12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens’), Kensington, London, W8 5PR, United Kingdom
April 2023 – Offered for sale for £36 million ($44.4 million, €40.9 million or درهم163.2 million) through Knight Frank. Valued on Homipi at an upper sum of £28.558 million ($35.250 million, €32.440 million or درهم129.456 million).
2009 – Mr and Mrs Villalonga divorce and subsequently Adriana Abascal married Emmanuel Schreder, a French businessman, in Ibiza in June 2013.
2005 – Sold by Lord and Lady Black for £13.1 million ($16.2 million, €14.9 million or درهم59.4 million) to Spanish businessman Juan Villalonga Navarro and Mexican model, Miss Mexico winner and television presenter Adriana Abascal López-Cisneros Villalonga.
October 2004 – Placed for sale for £17.5 million ($21.6 million, €19.9 million or درهم79.3 million) according to NZ Herald.
January 2004 – Valued at £14 million ($17.3 million, €15.9 million or درهم63.5 million) according to The Globe And Mail. At the time, the “mansion” in “the upscale Kensington neighbourhood” was described as having “10 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a swimming pool.”
Featured also in The Guardian in an article by Chris Tryhorn. Quoting Lord Black, he shared: “At a certain price, anything is for sale. [It has] been shown to people in the not-too-distant-past.”
Going further, Tryhorn added: “Artwork from the 18th and 19th centuries lines the walls, and there is plenty of storage space for the extensive wardrobe and shoe collection of Lord Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, who famously declared once that her ‘extravagence knows no bounds.’ … It was originally two homes and one of the two original front doors is now a ‘deliveries’ entrance. He has used it in the past to host dinners with butler and maid service that was part-paid by Hollinger.”
Also in 2004, in a profile in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wrote:
“Every year the Blacks threw two parties, one at Christmas and one summer event, at their double-fronted 11-bedroom mansion in Cottesmore Gardens. Everybody who mattered at the time went: Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Goldsmith, James Hanson, Arnold Weinstock, Jacob Rothschild, royalty, the playwright Tom Stoppard.”
“Some of these, injudiciously as it turned out, agreed to join the main Hollinger board. The luckier ones – Peter Carrington, Robert Salisbury – got away with being made directors of TheTelegraph. As the Tories faded out, Labour ministers started to arrive, the indefatigable Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett and other ministers eager to ingratiate themselves with the Tory press. Prince and Princess Michael of Kent were assiduous in attendance. In London, the Nineties belonged to the Blacks. They were London’s most glamorous power couple.”
“There had been a time when both Blacks had kept their feet on the ground. This ceased to be the case. One evening Barbara Black rang Charles Moore panic-stricken from her Kensington home. There had been a last-minute drop-out from one of the famous Black dinner parties. ‘I’m short of a woman,’ she told Moore. Moore surveyed the newsroom. His gaze alighted on the journalist Eleanor Mills, by chance the stepdaughter of the Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.”
“An hour later, hastily groomed, made-up and brushed, Mills was sipping pre-dinner drinks in Cottesmore Gardens. Then disaster struck. A male guest, Max Fisher, dropped out. Mills was approached by Conrad Black. ‘Finish your drink and skedaddle,’ he told her. Barbara Black then told her to go to the kitchen and out through the servants’ door, where the driver would pick her up and take her home.”
2001 – Conrad Black is elevated to a life peerage in the United Kingdom at the suggestion of Tony Blair. He sat on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords until 2007 as The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG, but took a “leave of absence” between 2012 and 2019.
28th May 1996 – The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea ordered that 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens “shall be known and described” simply instead as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
Mid 1990s – The Blacks set about renovating 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens with the help of J. E. Evans Associates. Of the work in October 2006, The Sunday Times shared a segment of Tom Bower’s 2006 hatchet job Conrad and Lady Black that read: “Amiel vowed to create a palace that would attract celebrity worshipers of a power couple. Part of the first floor was to be removed to create a huge ground floor reception area.”
1992 – 12 and 14 Cottesmore Gardens sold by the administrators of the affairs of Alan Bond through estate agents Savills to media tycoon Conrad Black and his Watford born journalist wife Barbara Amiel Black for “well under the asking price” for a sum of £3.5 million ($4.3 million, €4 million or درهم15.9 million).
Mr Bond had been granted mortgages valued at £16.2 million ($20 million, €18.4 million or درهم73.5 million) on the property by Bell Satellite Services on the property along with two others at 4 and 16 Belgrave Mews in London, SW1 previously according to a report published by Financial Review in March 1990.
1991 – Rented to an American businessman for £6,000 per week ($7,400, €6,800 or درهم27,200 per week).
1990 – Placed in the hands of administrators of Mr Bond’s and placed for sale through Savills for a bargain basement sum of £3.8 million ($4.7 million, €4.3 million or درهم17.2 million) according to Financial Review.
1980s – Sold to Alan Bond’s Bell Satellite Group for £7 million ($8.6 million, €8 million or درهم31.7 million).
Circa 1905 – Walter Tapper is said to have “designed a library with handsome Arts and Crafts plasterwork (now removed) at the rear of the building.”
1869 – In their current marketing blurb, Knight Frank suggest: “There has been a house on the site of 12 – 14 Cottesmore Gardens since at least 1869. The current house has been altered, extended and most notably joined over the subsequent century and a half. With the local planning department strongly opposed to further amalgamation of homes, opportunities to acquire a house of this width will be rarer still in the future.”
1850s to 1860s – Built “under the direction of David Howell, of Serjeants Inn, Fleet Street.” Mr Howell was described in 1853 as an “articled clerk to a solicitor, lately carrying on business as a solicitor.” The architecture was lauded as: “Designed in a bold classical manner, with rather fleshy consoles and modillions… and bands of Vitruvian scroll between the bases of the ground-floor windows.”
More photographs of the £36 million mansion…
An entrance hall where power and privilege have most certainly mingled previously.The 54-foot wide drawing is lauded by selling realtors Knight Frank as “arguably the best room in the house” and “double aspect.” They add: “[It has] six windows overlooking the street and additional views over the private garden to the rear.”The columns where Barbara Amiel Black once posed for photographs remain, but the subsequent owners eliminated much of the 1990s ‘brash’ that had been installed by a Watford born woman whose excess clearly offended so many.This dining room, where Conrad Black hosted presidents and prime ministers, is now somewhat diminished. The table for eight looks completely out of place and a future owner would do well to install something a little grander.A double height entertaining space was installed at the insistence of the loftier-than-lofty Lady Black in the 1990s and it remains today. However, it is now currently being used for more casual affairs such as Netflix viewing rather than being the scene of something that you’d more likely find in the ‘House of Cards’ in fact.A new owner might reinstate the grandeur of the past; sadly, however, this seems unlikely and the purchaser is more likely to be a footballer or Internet tycoon than a super-connected business tycoon.This currently very dark and very depressing study would most certainly not appeal to the very clearly very, very bright yet very, very pompous The Right Honourable The Lord Black of Crossharbour KCSG – a man who is said to count Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte as “his military heroes.” Of him in July 1997, Mark Honigsbaum in the ‘Independent’ remarked: “Although Black’s grandfather had briefly been a business partner of Harold Harmsworth, the original Viscount Rothermere, it was from his father, George Montegu Black Jr, that Black learned the art of corporate warfare, the importance of historical perspective and that gambling provides a disappointing rate of return compared to the Dow Jones index… The young Conrad was precocious. At the age of eight he sank his life savings of $60 into a single share of General Motors. He also became obsessed with Napoleon, and would astound his father’s friends by reeling off details of campaigns. Another story has him washing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry on a line outside his father’s home in Toronto. The last is apocryphal – Black says he slipped in the mud and was cleaning his change – but the image of the young capitalist, wise beyond his years, is accurate. His childhood tutor, the historian Laurier LaPierre, once asked Black why he always seemed to have the air of someone waiting for something to happen… A few years ago, for instance, the rumour went round Fleet Street that Black had bought Napoleon’s preserved penis at an auction. Black denied it, but many remain convinced that Bonaparte’s body part sits in Black’s collection of military curios… Black is no philanderer and is devoted to his second wife, the former ‘Sunday Times’ columnist Barbara Amiel. They are said to be intellectual soul mates and the parties at their four-storey mansion in Kensington are famous for bringing together a cross-section of the great and good.”One could not imagine the likes of the late great Baroness Thatcher, for example, liking the idea of sitting in this extremely depressing and dark waiting area. A new owner would do well to obliterate a décor scheme that could have only been favoured by a completely colour blind banker.A room currently described as a ‘cinema room’ measures 28’6” by 21’6” and is situated at the rear of the house. One can imagine Conrad Black having sat here for hour upon hour watching historical dramas about Napoleon with the likes of chums such as the acclaimed historian Andrew Roberts, the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and the politician and diarist Alan Clark, but a new owner will be more likely next showing episodes of ‘Succession’ – based on ‘The Telegraph’ tycoon’s rival Rupert Murdoch – than viewing historical works one most definitely suspects.Dining whilst the staff cook would NEVER have been on the agenda in the era that pomposity reigned whilst Lady Black was chatelaine of 14 Cottesmore Gardens.A 2,000 square foot entire floor fit for a tycoon… The master bedroom suite of the house takes up the entirety of the second floor of the building. It incorporates not only the principal bedroom, but also a “his” dressing room and a “her” dressing room as well as a sitting area, a bathroom, a shower room and storage rooms. It has direct lift access and is bigger than the average Brit’s entire house.A dressing room in the house where Barbara Black opened up to ‘Vogue’ and displayed “closets overflowing with dazzling evening gowns, designer handbags and 100 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. ‘I have an extravagance that knows no bounds,’ she famously declared. Unfortunately for Lady Black, the article was closely perused at investment company Tweedy, Browne, a Hollinger International shareholder.”This playroom certainly did not exist in the era that Lord and Lady Black owned the property. It would be more likely crammed with books or stuffed with Manolo Blahnik shoes than toys from Toys ‘R Us. A new owner may likely reinstate it as an additional bedroom or office or games room perhaps.The pool room measures 43’9” by 26’9” and is no doubt where Lady Black spent many an hour relaxing.The garden to the rear was where Lord and Lady Black hosted their annual summer party (with guests “spilling” into their drawing room also). In surprisingly Tardis-like fashion, the duo were able to supposedly squeeze in upto 400 guests at such occasions. Amongst those said to have enjoyed hospitality there were Joan Collins and of such, magazine publisher Nicholas Coleridge wrote: “If you get a kick out of milling about with present and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, minor royals, dukes, editors, vastly rich Americans, distinguished historians, gossip columnists, playboys and lots of pretty ‘it’ girls, then this was the place to be.”The existing floor plan of the property illustrates the vast scale of the building offered. A buyer, Knight Frank observe, has additional options and “a pre-planning consultation has been carried out with RBKC by leading architects Studio Indigo.” They add: “[It] would completely reconfigure the house adding an additional basement floor and taking the internal space to more than 15,000 square foot. The resulting house would have a 40-foot by 41-foot south-facing rear garden.”A plan of the site as presented in 1996 when 12 and 14 became known just as 14 Cottesmore Gardens.
As she faces sentencing for sex trafficking, morally bankrupt mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell turns to the words of morally superior Mark Twain; all they really have in common is mutual experience of financial bankruptcy
As deranged and delusional as only a woman who “makes monster moves” and “growls” in front of prison guards most certainly has to be – qualities apparently moulded into her by her equally deranged and delusional crook father – it must be said that when she gave a TED talk in 2014, the since convicted mucky madam sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell did exhibit obvious intellectual intelligence.
University of Oxford educated and the holder of both a BA and an MA – courtesy, it must be remembered, of her decidedly dodgy daddy bunging a fair wad of wonga to the college both she and her school chum Dame Cressida Dick attended – Miss Maxwell (AKA ‘Mrs Scott Borgerson’ – if he’s not given up on her and run off with his sexually “saucy” yoga partner) is now gunning for an appeal against her conviction.
As part of a strategy they believe will set this sordid sex trafficker free, the Maxwell family are using their @RealGhislaine Twitter account to peddle yet more piffle about their “beloved sister.” The account has attracted 10,000 followers and some media attention, but most responses to it have without a shadow of a doubt been beyond negative.
Yesterday evening whilst currently facing a long wait until sentencing on the 28th June, taking a turn further into the bizarre after babbling on about the ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ favourite child – a child he also allegedly abused, if you’d believe a word that morphs out of the mouth of onetime owner of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph Lord Hartwell’s daughter Eleanor Berry – @RealGhislaine went for the “intellectual” angle and tweeted:
“‘When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. But I’m getting older, and soon, I’ll remember only the things that never happened.’ Mark Twain.”
In sharing this, the Maxwells may think themselves clever, but they seem to forget that though Mark Twain shared having been bankrupt financially once with them, he most certainly wasn’t also morally bankrupt like their evil, murderer father. Unlike the pension pot plunderer’s kiddies with a still missing £500 million on their collective consciences, Twain paid back his creditors in full and unlike them, history remembers him fondly. History and especially the pensioners cheated out of comfortable retirements will never remember the duplicitous Maxwells in that way.
On the last day of January, obviously irritated at the way in which their seriously sinister sibling was quite deservedly being presented, @RealGhislaine shared another laughable tweet. It read:
“The narrative that says ‘she’s the daughter of a bad man, she’s treated badly, she goes with another bad man’ it’s so simplistic… It’s just intellectually lazy and it’s wrong.”
As crusading author Kirby Sommers highlighted in Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography, Robert Maxwell once remarked: “I have a beautiful daughter and she’s just like me.” As, we have pointed out repeatedly when quoting it: The word “beautiful” should be replaced with “deviant” and it is jolly well time the mendacious Maxwell family faced that unsavoury truth.
To purchase a copy of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ by Kirby Sommers, click here.
Ghislaine Maxwell might like to think of herself as a bit of a brainbox, but forevermore she’ll be remembered for sex trafficking young girls with the croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and for teaching the dimwitted dumb disgrace Lady Victoria Hervey how to give blowjobs.Ghislaine Maxwell has spoken on TED and at such events as the Westchester Digital Summit. In promotional material for such she was referenced as “a private helicopter pilot, a trained EMT, and a qualified ROV and Deepworker submarine pilot.” They added: “She speaks four languages: English, French, Spanish and Italian,” but neglected to mention that in addition to her American, British and French passports, she bizarrely told lawyers at Boies Schiller & Flexner that she was “a citizen of TerraMar” in April 2016. The @RealGhislaine ‘Mark Twain Moment’ tweet didn’t exactly go viral. It was liked just 24 times, quoted once and retweeted by 3 other accounts.
“F**king what? The whole family is delusional lmfao.”
“This is so disgusting! Your basically say all those women are liars, f**k outs here. This account is pathetic.”
“You wouldn’t know Mark Twain if you ran into him! He wasn’t a sick person such as yourself. #guilty #pedophile.”
“If I raped a bunch of kids (like you), I’d probably wish for that outcome as well.”
The @RealGhislaine ‘Bad Man’ tweet was equally badly received and only liked 28 times and retweeted by 3 other accounts.The second part of this missive, complete with a link to a toady interview with Ian Maxwell in ‘La Repubblica’ on 31st January 2022, was liked only 18 times.
“Let’s be honest. For donkey’s years, your sister has had the media on her side with the rich and famous for her own aggrandizement and projects. You are lucky you are given a platform to speak. Most people are not.”
“Whichever way you cut it, you cannot get beyond the fact that your sister had a business with/was in business with Jeffrey Epstein and that she herself or her reps have admitted to his misconduct. She could have done something to stop it. So why didn’t she?”
“When your sister was deposed she could have said something. She didn’t. That was her choice. She could have gone to the FBI herself. She didn’t. These were conscious decisions she made. She does have to bear responsibility of her own decisions to keep quiet.”
“If your sister was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s, she could have told the FBI, she could have called trafficking hotlines. It’’ not as if she was not extremely well connected, including to Clinton, Trump, Gates, Jobs, Rothschild, Kerry… She was better connected than 99.9%.”
“Ghislaine Maxwell traded on being the daughter of Robert Maxwell and girlfriend/associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She didn’t have a problem with being associated with them when it served her purpose. Only now is it a problem…”
“I guess we need to see the sex photos to prove her brother is wrong.”
‘Tatler’ magazine called out for suggesting a Chelsea restaurant that closed down in August 2016 as a “hot spot” post ‘Lockdown 3.0’ ending in May 2021
A “tattler” is an “observer or spectator… a gossip who tells tales,” whilst ‘THE’ Tatler is defined by the Oxford Learners’ Dictionary as “a British magazine, published once a month and containing articles about upper-class and upper-middle-class social events, fashion and the arts.”
Given the Condé Nast lifestyle publication’s staff – amongst them previously the current editor of the Daily Mail, Geordie Greig, and the ex-editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Tina Brown CBE – have variously included many Oxbridge alumni, one would assume they’d be a little better at fact checking than the notoriously sloppy seconds employed by the MailOnline (which is rated 1 out of 5 by the Microsoft Edge browser given its propensity to share fake news), but instead a recent edition of the monthly society bible featured a complete balls-up.
“[Brasserie Gustave at 4 Sydney Street, London, SW3 6PP is] located at the exact point where South Ken meets Chelsea (and on a site that has seen more restaurants than Ramires has had yellow cards), this French bistro is a keeper. If the art-deco posters look a bit hackneyed, not to say banal, the food is anything but. It’s fresh and lively, classic French dishes prepared with punctilious attention to detail. Confit de canard is superb and you won’t find a better plate of kidneys in London. Great wines too, managed with gusto by experienced sommelier Richard Weiss.”
Whilst of their thirteen selections, the loathed by Dan Wootton magazine prattled: “We’ve eaten our way around Chelsea’s top restaurants… We’ve got you covered,” a comment on OpenTable from as long ago 22nd August 2016 reads: “I made a reservation and got there and the restaurant was closed.” Plainly, anyone with half a brain would have realised five years ago that Brasserie Gustave turned out actually to be anything but “a keeper.”
In the time since, Tatler’s editorial team also missed their very own one-time contributor Giles Coren’s visit to 4 Sydney Street on 15th July 2017. At that time, he lauded “pan-Asian” Zheng Chelsea as “the sort of places foodies go in quest of the new and wonderful.”
Pictured top: 4 Sydney Street has been various restaurants over the years including Carpaccio, Sette, Marco Pierre White’s Sydney Street Grill, Brasserie Gustave and most recently Zheng Chelsea.
The magazine’s May 2020 feature on Brasserie Gustave – a restaurant that closed in August 2016.In August 2016, an OpenTable user commented: “I made a reservation for [Brasserie Gustave] on Open Table and got there and the restaurant was closed.”The front elevation of Zheng Chelsea, 4 Sydney Street, Chelsea, London, SW3 6PP.The interior of the restaurant as it used to be during the era that Brasserie Gustave (left) occupied the site and as it has been since circa 2016 as “pan-Asian” Zheng Chelsea (right). Of food there, in July 2017, Giles Coren remarked: “Food this good and this unusual would normally never be found in Chelsea… Chelsea is not absolutely the last place in the entire world that I would go looking for brilliant authentic Malaysian cooking, but it comes close. What with the well-upholstered complacency of the locals, the lack of any significant oriental population, the high throughput of tourists and idle shoppers in need of plasticky chain food, the sky-high rents and concomitant historical lack of any decent restaurants here at all, Chelsea is perhaps the second last place in the known universe that I would go in expectation of fiery, original, challenging but entirely successful Straits Chinese cuisine.”The society go-to title was previously accused of a “swathe of inaccuracies and false misrepresentations” in May 2020 by Kensington Palace after it published an article about one-time friend of its current editor, Richard Dennen (pictured together right), the Duchess of Cambridge titled “Catherine the Great.”
“Roy’s the boy” raged commentator Simon Holt as this legendary French born co-holder of the most number of wins at Brighton romped home after achieving nine 1st places along with two 2nd and six 3rd places at the course also.
With 1,300 followers on Twitter, grey gelding Roy Rocket was universally loved and to support him an octogenarian named Iris would “as he went to post… produce from one of her many voluminous handbags a flask of gin and tonic and insist that trainer John Berry took a swig for luck. It sometimes worked.”
In May 2018, racing history was made when transgender jockey Victoria Smith – formerly known as Vince – rode Roy Rocket in a one-mile charity race as a woman at Warwick and became the first person to have competed in both male and female categories.
Of Roy Rocket, in July 2018, John Berry told the Racing Post: “He’s the most incredible horse… If I took him to a place he wasn’t used to going, we probably wouldn’t get there… He’d hate going somewhere different to where he normally goes and he hates not having a whole horse box to himself… He knows the yard so well, you could open up the French windows and bring him in the house… You can give him so much freedom without him being a danger… He loves carrots, his whole life’s a treat. The way the whole yard is run is pretty much around suiting him.”
A winner of the ROA Award for Flat Special Achievements also, Roy Rocket is eulogised by John Berry Racing as having “[given] some of the best days of racing of our lives.” This great favourite of punters everywhere will be forever missed.
Grade A listed freehold Scottish castle with cottages, barony title, gold and copper reserves and 240 acres of land goes to auction for just £130,000 just as plans for a space centre are announced in the vicinity
Our November 2018 article on an Irish castle on a private island that was for sale for just £80,000 ($111,000, €93,000 or درهم409,000) continues to attract numerous hits each week to this day and now we’ve found something equally ‘cheap’ in Scotland that we imagine will prove equally popular.
Situated on Unst, the northernmost of the inhabited isles of Great Britain, 15th century Muness Castle is to be sold at auction on 23rd April with a guide price of just £130,000 ($181,000, €151,000 or درهم665,000). It comes with 240 acres and thus comes in at an astonishingly low price equivalent of just £542 per acre ($755, €629 or درهم2,800 per acre).
Given farmland in Oxfordshire is currently valued at around £10,300 per acre ($14,400, €12,000 or درهم52,700 per acre), this apparent bargain does, however, come with a number of catches. The “number of crofter’s cottages” that come as part of the property are “mainly in derelict condition,” according to auctioneers Future Property Auctions of Glasgow, and the most definitely presently anything but inhabitable 73-foot by 26-foot, Grade A listed castle itself is currently “run as museum by Historic Scotland” on a “free of charge basis.”
Currently owned by one Gavin Farquhar of the Ecclesgreig Estate in Kincardineshire, the property offered was listed as having a “consideration” value of £65,000 ($91,000, €75,000 or درهم333,000) in August 2006 and aside from a number of “burdens” to various parties, includes part-diviso rights to “gold and copper reserves discovered in a recently commissioned geological survey.”
For a buyer wanting a barony title, seclusion and to own land on a “superb section of coastline” rich in flora, fauna and sea life where dolphins, otters, puffins, seals and whales are spotted regularly, here is a bargain piece of paradise. Unst covers an area of 46 square miles, has a population of 632 and is accessible primarily by ferry since its airport was mothballed in 1996.
The island of Unst is bizarrely internationally famous for a bus shelter known as ‘Bobby’s Bus Shelter.’ The stop and shelter was saved by a then 7-year-old boy named Bobby Macaulay in 1996 after he wrote to the local council asking them not to remove it because it was where he kept his bike whilst at school. The council relented and furnished it with a sofa and television and periodically give it themed additions which have included tributes to Nelson Mandela, sheep, puffins and women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom.Another attraction on the island was the Valhalla Brewery, the northernmost brewery in the United Kingdom. Named after the Norse god Odin, Valhalla produced dark ales from malt, hops and bere barley, but after the owners fell ill, it ultimately closed permanently. In March this year, plans to reuse the brewery site for the construction of the Shetland Space Centre were announced and should they go ahead around 140 new jobs would be created on Unst as a result.An aerial view of the castle shows how thick its walls are and thus provides evidence as to why it has lasted over 423 years in spite of the harsh climate of its situation.The structure retains many original architectural details.Though the building is currently simply a tourist attraction, perhaps – subject to any planning processes – it could be returned to residential usage. The cost and dealing with bureaucrats might, however, be prohibitive and request by ‘The Steeple Times’ to selling auctioneers Future Property Auctioneers about such had not been answered at time of publication.The setting of the castle with views to the North Sea beyond and a cottage adjoining.The original floor plan of the building (before French pirate enemies of the then owner burnt the place down in 1627). As a result, now, the castle now has only two of its original three stories remaining. The building was used from 1713 by the Dutch East India Company as a storage space for goods the Company managed to salvage from the wreck of one of their vessels, but was then recorded as roofless and abandoned in 1775.This map shows the true isolation of the location.The coastline of Unst is truly epically spectacular.
This 2018 video shows Muness Castle with scaffolding around it – indication that good care has been taken of what remains of the structure.
Matthew Steeples slams the likely coverup of the latest Conservative Party sex scandal involving a still unnamed MP as a “French farce” and suggests that the Tories really shouldn’t sweep this matter under the carpet
One would have thought the Conservative Party would have come to its senses after the “French farce” debacle with the currently in the clink abuser ‘Naughty Tory’ ex-MP Charlie Elphicke and his tawdry replacement MP wife, Natalie.
Aside from both Theresa May and Boris Johnson having protected accused and, in some cases, convicted sex pest Members of Parliament in recent years, this morning the Mirror hinted at a coverup over the sidelining of an investigation into a “campaign of control and sexual abuse” of a woman by a “monster Tory MP” – a man said to be a former minister in his 50s.
In the report into this “French farce” of an investigation – which does not name any of the parties involved – the Mirror exclusively shared that the “top lawyer” Nigel Edwards QC has now taken on the woman’s case on a pro bono basis and reported allegations that:
The woman, a lady in her 20s, was supposedly subjected to sexual assaults in July 2019 and October 2019 by the Conservative MP.
The alleged victim claims to have been raped by the MP in January 2020.
The same man is said to have “told her what to wear and screamed if she wasn’t smiling” during a period in which she worked for him.
The woman’s mother told the paper that her daughter was “in shock and sobbing” after incidents and “has since been diagnosed with PTSD and is on medication.”
The same man is said to have threatened the woman on a night out, shouted at her in the street “with raised fists, screaming in her face, and swearing at her.” On that occasion, the then reportedly “tried to push her into a taxi.”
The MP subsequently “demanded” his victim then “come to his office and begged forgiveness” and that is “when one of the sexual assaults happened” allegedly.
The MP then allegedly “told her he’d come after her and destroy her life if she told anyone what happened. If she didn’t do as he said, he boasted that he’d wreck her career.”
14 people with supporting evidence were not questioned by the police.
Relevant documents from Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis and The Havens were not collected by the police.
Key evidence including text messages and phone records were ignored by the police.
Officers dismissed her claims because she was in a relationship with the MP and then “victim blamed” her.
Now, in spite of the police having decided not to proceed with any investigation into the allegations of rape, sexual assault and coercive control, Edwards told the paper:
“We are giving advice as to her options. There could be a civil claim for the damage done. A private prosecution could be considered if all other options have been exhausted.”
“All options will be explored and remain open so justice can be done and ensure any dereliction of duty or abuse of power is not unchallenged.”
Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.
A French Farce – This morning’s revelations in the ‘Mirror’ show that the Conservative Party have learnt nothing from the scandal of ‘Naughty Tory’ arse slapper Charlie Elphicke.A French Farce – In October 2017, the ‘Evening Standard’ revealed that a dossier of 36 Conservative MPs accused of “inappropriate behavior towards colleagues, including allegations of sexual misconduct” had been put together by the party. Ludicrously, little-to-nothing was subsequently done about these supposedly “highly inappropriately” behaved abusers and their twisted antics. Now, once again, that the party are sweeping allegations under the carpet is an outrage.A French Farce – There is nothing new about Tory MPs and sex scandals. In 1986, “kinky” Harvey Proctor MP – a man linked to Jeffrey Epstein’s mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell via his then employer – was found guilty of gross indecency with teenagers.
A French Farce – The comedian Andrew Lawrence mocked the “French farce” that is theConservative Party’s attitudes to sexual misconduct to his 26,000 subscribers on YouTube in August 2020, but it must be remembered that the victims of creepy ‘sex pest’ MPs have been subjected to criminal sexual abuse. For that, such offenders should be brought to justice – whoever they may be.
Ninety-year-old daily martini drinker Micheline Stephen of Cupar, Scotland is to be saluted for grabbing a robber and calling him “a wee sh*te”
Spotted on the brilliant Facebook group ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers,’ our heroine of the hour just had to be a “Dame Maggie Smith lookalike” named Micheline Stephen of Hill Street, Cupar, Scotland.
Featured in an article by Jamie Callaghan in Fife Today on Monday, French born daily martini drinker Mrs Stephen “was coming out of her bathroom when she noticed someone wandering around her kitchen.”
“Initially, she believed it was her grandson,” the paper reported, but, as he attempted to escape through a window, Mrs Stephen “noticed it was not my grandson, but a young man… He had a rucksack on his back.”
The sprightly pensioner “tried to pull him in” and “understandably angry… hurled abuse at the robber as he fled.” She remarked: “I told him that he was a wee sh*te.”
Though yet to be apprehended, the nasty little tyke got away with Mrs Stephen’s cigarettes and lighter. In turn, officers from Police Scotland sent her a birthday card when she turned 90 two days later.
Today, we join those on ‘Angry People in Local Newpsapers’ raising a martini to this “legend” and suggesting a “Kickstarter for Micheline Stephen’s fags.”
On the Facebook group, the journalist Jamie Callaghan’s girlfriend Catriona Wilkie, joined the 50 people leaving comments about the article. One user told her: “It’s a CV moment” of his having made Angry People in Local Newspapers,” though another stated: “I have knocked off points for no mention of grankids [SIC] names, ages or other irrelevant health conditions.”Fans declared Micheline Stephen’s actions “fabulous” and one declared: “This is the most Scottish thing I’ve ever read.”
Auctioneers Christie’s sought to sell five waste bins for £230; they ultimately went for the astounding sum of just under £34,000
Whilst most people would rubbish around a few pounds for a waste bin to put the junk mail we mentioned on Friday, a set of five sold for £33,900 ($43,750, €37,300 or درهم160,700) in a Christie’s auction last week.
Offered with an estimate of £230 to £390 ($300 to $500, €260 to €430 or درهم1,100 to درهم1,800) to reflect that they had been supplied by the late French interior designer Henri Samuel – a man “hailed by Architectural Digest as a ‘supreme master of progressive historicism’” – the 20th century faux wood grain and cream painted bins were supplied with Italian marbelised paper linings.
Plainly another deciding factor for the purchaser of these very expensive rubbish containers was their past ownership. The bins had previously been owned by the late American socialite and philanthropist Jayne Wrightsman.
The collection of Jayne Wrightsman (1919 – 2019) sold for a total of £930,000 ($1.2 million, €1 million or درهم4.4 million) at Christie’s. Her waste baskets were the top performing lot in the sale.
Tiny French pied à terre on the Côte d’Azur once owned by the ‘Maigret’ author Georges Simenon for sale for just £107,000; he described the property as his ‘house of happiness’
Whilst some of the supposed ‘bargain’ properties we’ve featured recently – such as this £15,000 Edwardian ‘fixer upper’ house in Buffalo, Kansas – are in obscure parts of America and might seem a little off-piste and quirky, an especially quaint £107,000 Côte d’Azur pied à terre will no doubt appeal to literary lovers.
Bought by the Maigret author Georges Simenon (1903 – 1989) in 1956 as a birthday present for his second wife, Denyse Ouimet, and featuring usable space extending to 272.2 square foot, the property includes a reception room, kitchen, bathroom and mezzanine sleeping area. A separate entrance leads to a second bedroom and bathroom.
Offered for sale last year for £161,000, this petite pad in Cagnes-sur-Mer has recently been reduced in price by 34% to £107,00. The selling agents are Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate – whose offices are situated directly next door.
The Numbers – 98 Montée de la Bourgade, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Haut-de-Cagnes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA), 06800, France
September 2020 – Reduced in price to £107,000 ($142,000, €120,000 or درهم522,000) through estate agents Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate. The cost to fix the roof has been estimated at £12,110 ($16,060, €13,550 or درهم58,975) by the selling agents.
November 2019 – Offered for sale for £161,000 ($213,000, €180,000 or درهم781,000) through estate agents Emmanuelle Minassian International Real Estate.
Pictured top: The former Cagnes-sur-Mer home of Georges Simeon – which he is said to have described as his “house of happiness” – and the acclaimed author himself. The Belgian born writer published over 500 novels and was capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. He had at least two dozen pseudonyms and around 550 million copies of his works have been printed.
Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – The reception room features an open fireplace and tiled flooring.Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – Georges Simeon somehow managed to live at 98 montée de la Bourgade with his third wife and their three children in the 1950s in spite of it being quite beyond tiny. His initial ‘S’ is still to be found on in the ironmongery on the external staircase railings of the building.Georges Simenon’s ‘House of Happiness’ – 98 Montée de la Bourgade is situated on a picture perfect side street in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Amongst attractions of the town are the Hippodrome de la Côte d’Azur, a well-known horse racing track, and a 2.5-mile long beach.
